14 at the Peak, legs feeling weak. I still can’t feel my left rear cheek.

What had happened:

Warmup running with funky fresh freestylin

COP – IN CADENCE!

Lounge walk down the hill

Hairburner team relays, teams of 4 or 5. Burn hair while your homies pretend to exercise. Roll over and get out the way when your legs die or get plowed over by the Nomad/Sensei steamroller .

We did several variations of this, with Mary for the six.

Lounge walk up the hill, not good.

Sprint Gassers until somebody larfed by the curb, really not good.

What had really happened:

Sorry for the late blast. It was not a nice day to spend 7 hours in the car. Where are those inflatable pants when need them?

On another note, I did make the drive through Bishopville, SC today – home of the Lizard Man of Lee County. Ask Lois what happened to his cousin’s dog . . . but he might get a little emotional.

Speaking of an emotional Lois, it was nice to see Stone Cold get greeted with the full on hug and heroes welcome. It must be nice to be traveling celebrity guest pax. Tweetsie looked a little jealous for a second, but who can fault the guy?

I thought about Sensei not being able to handle this type of a workout for about 3 seconds. What was I thinking? The man is an inspiration to me. I bet he could make Chuck Norris flinch . . . well, maybe once.

I was really looking forward to spending some time with Slim Fast and his pile of coats and hats today, but I heard he was out hustling some golf in the desert. Loser has to be on his BRR team # 17.

Swiss Miss won’t cheat a rep, and he does it all with good form. Lots of slerkins and murpees out there, but he ain’t going for it. I wish he’d come out and play at the other workouts.

Do you ever think about Tom and Jerry? They are basically two cartoon animals beating the absolute hell out of each other, over and over. I think about it sometimes. Do they even have cartoons now?

When the winter weather hits, you never know how much clothing to wear. A lot of guys start out with the long sleeves, and then ditch the top layer mid workout. You can tell if you have a good Q going if the layers start coming off early. What I don’t see much of are those camping pants where you can zip the legs off and then BOOM, shorts. I need to give those a go.

Got a text from Glass Joe last night that his daughter had broken her arm attempting a Yurchenko vault from a 2X12 wedged under the rear bumper of his F-150 at the Unionville Gymnastics and Check Cashing Center last night. Gotta help a brother out, so time to brave the extremely confusing temporary stoplights, traffic cones, and barriers across Hwy74 to lead the brave men of (the real) UC in this morning’s misadventure.

THANG:

Warmup COP near the entrance to the trail that leads to the meth houses. Some stuff.

Much longer-than-anyone-wanted suicides along the road. R1 Squats, R2 Merkins. Mary for the six.

Stairway to 7s on the hill – burpees and jump squats. Near mutiny because mud, so moved to the road and doubled the length because complaining.

Ascending merkins at the stoplights on the other side of the field to complete the cubic route around campus.

Mary

MOLESKIN:

It’s been a while since I have posted out in Hazard County. I was surprised to see 14 other guys show up, still a good crew out there. Not a lot has changed.

Shepherd still does nanosquats

Hairband complained about running the whole time

Bonhoeffer still wore that awful tank top

Hoffa was angry about stuff

Arsenal died three times

Gypsy only speaks F3 lexicon now and wears a shovel flag as a loincloth

Lumberjack has a nice car

Killi is apparently not named after the dwarf in The Hobbit

Two of the young guys were crushing it out there – Full House and Jock Strap. Strap has his VQ tomorrow at Death Valley, home of all things muddy and soccer. Since he was out front on the suicides, I asked him to demonstrate his cadence (which of course he has been practicing). You boys are in for a real treat tomorrow.

Lots of hate for the running out there today. Good . . . Good . . . let the hate flow through you. Use your aggressive feelings. Only then, will you harness the true power of the Dark Side.

10 Men are have a little wobble to their walk thanks to some hairburners and a “recovery hill”. No Site Qs were harmed during the production of this workout. According to Strava, Orange Whip is hanging out with Richard Bachman in Maine. I think he taped his iPhone to the back of of a Muskrat while he scarfed down some lobster and waffles, but we may need the FBI to investigate that.

Thang:

Warmup near the tennis courts where the lonely port-a-john lives. Nobody was home. Harley eagerly asked about the graveyard, so we got out of there.

Main event was a hairburner rally with teams of three. Move your plate across the lot and back as a team while the partners do an exercise, or roll over and play dead. As long at the plate gets there, the rulez were pretty loose.

“Recovery ” was three hill sprints with some exercises at the base after each down and back.

Move the plates down a level and repeat this several times, keeping the hill sprints after each set. As we moved farther away, the sprints got more unpleasant as did the Pax.

Final move was to slide the plates all the way back up, nonstop. Near mutiny, but we pulled it together and got er done. Bulldogs knee exploded and I think somebody’s spleen shot out of their eye socket, so I’ll call it a win.

As if that wasn’t enough, we then headed back over to the graveyard to kill the last bit of time. Partners run, one does LBCs in dead end and the other does derkins on the bench. meet in the middle for 15 team burpees. Each man does exactly 7.5 burpees, or split em up however you can work it out emotionally with your partner.

Finally, we ran back to the start while I pretended to so some Mary for a couple of mins.

Shoutouts:

Whip for the Keys.

TR for the plates and the memories.

Harley for the Graveyard curiosity.

TD for the encouragement.

Cage for the age (he’s 58, you know).

Cottontail for the Lamaze class coaching noises.

Christmas for doing most of our team’s burpees.

Bowser for moving the princess to another castle, but giving us a heads up.

Squid for being awesome and letting it show.

Bulldog for proper annunciation.

Dry Erase Boards, for being so remarkable

Wham-O for coming out, even though they were playing Ultimate at Joust. That must really be terrible if a guy named after a Frisbee skips out.

Witch Doctor for a steady diet of Pop Tarts, Hot Pockets, and Dr. Thunder that keeps this machine running.

My Spiritual Gifts Worksheet, for showing me that I have the gift of encouragement.

Here come the hot stepper, murderer
I’m the lyrical gangster, murderer
Pick up the crew in-a de area, murderer
Still love you like that

Sorry, but when I think of a small group of middle-aged white guys running around downtown Matthews with blinkie lights and headlamps, this type of lyrical hardness pops right to the top.

Thang:

4 dudes on a mission, cover some ground without dropping the Q or getting run over. Mission Accomplished.

Cruise the Matthews back alleys through the secret trail near the Building Supply that spits you out at a sketchy Hwy51 crossing with no stoplight. Roll that dice and hit the Crews Road business park for some exercisin’ in the Charlotte Eagles parking lot. Next, head over to Crestdale Middle for a giant burpee starfish. After this, head back down to the Jekyll and Hyde for some suicides and merkins. Finishing Blow, AYG wind sprints back at Matthews Elementary. I’m sure that there was more, but nobody really cares about this stuff anyway. I think it was 5 miles or so.

Skin:

Nothing like jamming some Kidz Bop to get your head right for a big Q. If you like to hear songs that you already hate taken to the next level, I suggest you give it a whirl.

Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Starship are a musical Bermuda triangle with a Venn Diagram on top. I couldn’t find the Kidz Bop version of any of their songs this morning, so I went with the Hot Stepper in my opening monologue, but I’m still searching. I think this is where I got the inspiration for the Giant Starfish, but it’s hard to really pinpoint this complex kind of emotion.

So we’re coming back to home base and I get this big loogie stuck in my throat. Seriously, I almost harfed right on the sidewalk. I figured that some wind sprints would either dislodge it, or my head, and decided to give it a whirl. It was an interesting call, but it did set us up to check out the P51 crew who were also out in the back. Turns out, they were taking turns beating Slim Fast with a bar of soap in a sock for telling them that the BRR was a “nice little jog in the mountains”. I think the gig is up. He’s playing chess while we play checkers out here though, so I’m probably way off base.

Those sprints got me fired up all right. It was like when the Axl blows the whistle in Paradise City and you are at the skating rink. You’re out of quarters for Street Fighter, so it’s go time on the hardwoods. Panama Jack has been giving you the business and it’s time to show everybody that you can still dominate, even with the orange rental skates. At least, that’s how I felt at the moment.

As a side note, just because they offer corn dogs as a side item at Cook Out doesn’t mean that it’s a good call. I had some trouble keeping up with Tony Stark and the two kids this morning and I fully attribute it to this. They dropped me like Brian Dunkleman on the 2nd season of American Idol. BTW, Clay > Ruben. Don’t @ me.

I will note that there was a failed attempt at naming one of the P51 FNGs as “VanillaNutTaps”. Cruller was the substitute. Maybe VNT would have been a better call. It came from this Bushwood documentary video.

Gotta roll. Working on my TJ Hooker costume for Scarowinds. Come and check it out.

P.S. Somehow, I’m on Q for Kevlar tomorrow. If you made it this far, you need to come on out and see Part 2 in person.

22 men drug their Q up and down an awful hill this morning for this weeks edition of HorseyMcHorseArse. There was sweating and lurching and lots of snotboogers flying. My spleen shot out of my ear at one point, but Baracus picked it up for me. Some walked, a few may have crawled, but everybody kept moving.

I had planned out another workout where we all starfished from the flag pole and met back in the middle for high fives and attaboys. On the way over, something didn’t feel right. Could we? Should we? Would we? Why don’t we? We’ll let the pax decide. Without hesitation, they chose option B – infinite repeats to the top of Mt. Horsey. #Purity. Spooky Jon pulled a #LeeroyJenkins and nearly ran me over. The remaining troops followed suit, with the big man Hoover running security detail in the rear for us.

Lots of encouragement during this workout. I tried to write down some of the things the guys shouted over to me, but the notepad got sweaty and then I had to eat it to survive. Here’s what I remember.

you suck

your mom sucks

what was option C?

he should have went to Jared

where is my Epi pen?

is that Ross Perot in the woods?

you are a son of motherless goat

I truly hate you Horsehead, from the bottom of my heart

I couldn’t quite make out several more, including some hand gestures, but it really touched me, you know.

It’s probably gonna be a while before I do that again. I’d rather just walk on legos. I’ve got one of those fancy standing desks at work, but it ain’t happening today. Folks stick their head in my office and see me hunkered down at this thing and probably think I’m just a lazy slob who wasted money on this desk. They don’t know what we know . . . Maybe I’ll tell them, maybe I won’t . They probably wouldn’t believe it anyway.

It’s hard to get a grip on this crazy place. The entire workout feels like a giant Scooby Doo chase scene, with zombies and the Miner Forty-Niner running around opening and closing endless doors in a hallway. I’d like to get the BBC film crew out there and see if we can get Sir David Attenborough to narrate this thing.

You know who named this workout? It wasn’t me. There once was a man named Tiger Rag who used to frolic among our midst. He came and he went, but he always was. One day, he went away and never came back. I think he got snagged. This morning, we sent team Free Range over to Chester’s for an attempted rescue operation. This whole workout was just a diversion to keep the guys away while they dropped in with Seal Team 8 (well, it was really just Frasier with a nerf gun but he had on a black hoodie) . Anyway, they found them sitting there with some guy named Mark listening to KLove and playing Monopoly. TR had a hotel on Marvin Gardens and Atlantic, but didn’t have the cash for Ventnor yet. I could tell that it bothered him. He wouldn’t let it go and they were playing house rules with a big wad of cash sitting on Free Parking, so they had to leave him there and just let out the other hostages in the basement.

Gotta run. I’m developing a new iPhone app that goes live today. It can tell your age by listening to you pee. It’s a somewhat complex algorithm of starts/stops, drips, and curse words. It has me down as 75, but we have a few bugs to work out.

A six pack of hot Zima gold posted under the fog lamps for today’s rendition of Sparta (which was already the name of a Metro workout over near Freedom park, but nobody seems to care). We ambled and rambled and some took a gamble. Everyone left as a better man than he arrived, or at least a pound or so lighter.

THANG:

Warmup mile down the sidewalk to Crestdale Middle for some track intervals – 400s and 800s with 50% recovery. Suicides in the main lot until 6AM then run back for 6MOM. Everyone got in over 5 miles.

SKIN:

Nice push by the group this morning. I saw some guys working hard on the track and we kept a pretty tight formation on the trip back. Whip was chomping the bit a little, but he needs to slow down and enjoy the scenery sometimes.

I love taking workouts to brand new locations. It’s like going to that Dave Matthews concert that I heard some guys talking about this morning and hearing “We’re gonna play some new stuff tonight”. Errrbody loves that.

Might rain today. Might not. My friends grandpa once told me that he could forecast the rain by sitting the A/C in his Buick on Bi-Level. If the air from the floor ducts was colder . . . rain’s a comin’. You should try it. You do need a Buick with Bi-Level A/C controls.

Arena proclaimed his love for McHorsey Mondays after his virgin experience this week. I have the Q next week and he gave me the thumbs up thing when I asked him about posting. I think those were thumbs at least.

Thurston is moving to Durham this week. When he was shipwrecked on the island with all of those morons, he only had one copy of the Wall Street Journal which he read over and over. Unshaken by a flatlining S&P, he held tight on some key investments and finally made enough to move the family up to Krzyzewskiville. We wish you well. Tell Lovey we said hi.

Once upon a time, there was this very smart Greek fella that said that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Well, I can tell ya right now that that fella had never been to Hazzard County.

– Waylon Jennings – Dukes Of Hazzard, 10 Million Dollar Sheriff

A half-dozen showed up this morning to celebrate the 5 year mark of Outland, the OG Union County workout. We told tales of yore and re-enacted some famous scenes from battles past. Some of us even exercised a little.

Thang:

Warmup at the original shovel flag hill, which despite several attempts was unable to be obtained. We made do.

Mosey to the High School track to discover a new mini-sized fence has been installed on top of the mini-sized wall, blocking entrance in the traditional fashion. We’ll take the long way, a theme which persevered throughout the morn.

Traveling circus around the High School with some oak tree merkins and other assorted things as we made our way to the track for several circuits of 4Cornerz. Nice railslide option along the way. Pax had the option to choose burpees or something easier for the last set, and made the hard call.

Move to the field house for some air presses and BTW. Headrush. Option for bathtub exercises using the mysterious tub was not taken.

Ark Loader on the practice field – bears, crabs, wheelbarrows, and some lounging. Punch the new tackling dummy on the sled in the face and run back. Disturbingly therapeutic.

Meander over to Middle School for circuit of railslide, derkins, step ups, and LBCs while we ran a stair loop. Run this until 7:57 or so.

Option for a short run or long run back to the cars – both AYG. All pax took the long route.

Mary finisher at the cars. 3.something miles and a smoked out Q.

Skin:

Outland was my first F3 workout. I started just after the site had opened up, which was right at 5 years ago. After this amount of elite training, you too can look and perform like me. I recommend tempering the training with repeated injury and the diet of a 12 year old middle schooler to avoid public shock and awe.

We tried to relive some of the glory days, including the railslides and BTW sequence. The old rails have been fenced off; namely the one that was just too wide for Hairband to stretch across, not too wide for him to try, and perfectly wide enough for us to hang out and mock. Since we’re talking about Hairband, he had another appointment and was not present. Perhaps he was riding around on Madison’s bike carrier, who elected to go and hold up Charlotte traffic this morning instead of rolling the dice on this workout.

We tried to keep things moving this morning, and covered quite a bit of ground. TClaps to everyone for hanging on. Double TClaps for choosing the hard options when presented.

Some of the other fond (and not-so fond) Outland memories that come to mind include:

Zip and his thunderous counting

SheHateMe

DonkeySwings

The disintegrating Obstacle Course, which we nearly went on today

The “Mud Run Training” held in 2″ of ice slush and goose droppings – worst workout I have ever attended

Udder’s family reunions – Graffiti, Hardwood, and Electric Slide

Cheese Weavers

Countertop’s Pepper Pods – 40 year old men diving face-first in a field for no apparent reason

Hops guest Qwith the Snowman showing up wearing a Giant Snowman Head at the perfect time.

It’s time to consider the next wave of men who will run this site and continue the legacy. Bo and Luke must decrease while Vance and Coy must increase. Just don’t let Daisy leave Enos at the altar like she did in the 1997 reunion.

7 came out to relive their glory daze with a little old-school Kevlar action.

The Thang:

Does anyone read this anymore? We ran around and did some F3 stuff. Gummy complained, Orange Whip held back, and Night Court jumped over a fence. We busted out the filthy tires filled with 8 month old slime at the end, which nearly got me a standing ovation. I dumped the disgusting contents of one tire directly into my shoe. Old School Kevlar is back. Somehow, this is a good thing.

Moleskin:

The action started around 5:25 when Whip rolled up in his Lamont Sanford truck and jumped out wearing shorts and body paint looking like something from Cirque Du Soleil, Mt. Holly edition. He claimed that it was some sort of large sized shirt, but caught so much hell about it that he actually changed before we started. Way to stick with your guns. I thought he looked pretty good and tried to claim his as partner before we started, but he just ran off.

The Gummy rolled in next, with his usual encouragement, and shared some predictions on which pax are due for injury. I’m not gonna jinx anyone with some cute sentence that rhymes with their name, but The Gummy basically has a voodoo doll in his car with rotator cuffs, knees, and other old man injuries that he tweaks on while he is driving around. It’s a little unsettling, but I guess it’s better than texting and driving. By the way, I’m going to try out this The Gummy thing for a bit but I’m not sure if it will stick. Anyway, my take on this is what we call the F3 Fitness Sawtooth. After an initial step change, a man gains fitness in a somewhat linear fashion until injury, during which he experiences another step change downward. After this, the typical F3 cycle of fitness looks like a sawtooth function. Generally, we are about one bear crawl away from the dropoff at any time.

Some initial witty banter about the lack of witty banter, which came full circle. F3 is better with a lot of chatter, pure and simple. Working out in that Diogenes Club of a gym you just joined is no good, and discourages fellowship. Pretty soon you’ll be back at home eating cheeto dust from your navel with a homeade Princess Leia doll chained to your leg. You need the 2nd F to keep you going, or at least I do. From Mycroft Holmes himself:

There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubbable men in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the Stranger’s Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed, and three offences, if brought to the notice of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. My brother was one of the founders, and I have myself found it a very soothing atmosphere.

Night Court displayed both his old age and football prowess in a 5 min window by tripping in one of tires (hope your ankle is ok) and then throwing some SuperCam bullets with a stray pigskin on the field. His even superior Perry Mason skilz allowed him to turn away from the Football path though, and he is living his best Concussion-free life now. I’m not sure about the van, the video cameras, and that thing about throwing the ball over a mountain, but who am I to judge.

Missing Cottontail, as they celebrate Baby 13, or conceive Baby 14. I’m not sure exactly what goes on in that house during the early hours, but we hope to have him back soon.

Thanks for coming out. Yes, you should probably get a shot or something from those tires. Ask your doctor if that’s right for you.

love,

HH

P.S. – There is a new Beef Jerky outlet at the Arbo. Somehow, this should get connected with Ghost Runner.

“I’m the master of distractions. A couple of hand gestures and BAM! I’ll pull the underwear clean off your butt.”
― The Prophet Silas Robertson

Cliffs Notes Version:

Lebben posted. No kids. Whip told an awkward story. Q self-smoked.

Full Blast for those so inclined:

Eleven at Kevlar this morning. No high-schoolers this week, a departure from recent trends. It was a good thing too, as Orange Whip started us out of the gate with a PG-13 story about his Uber Ride back from Raleigh with Roxxxanne that lasted way too long. The Q itself was more of a R-Rated endeavor, mostly for the excessive gore and violence in watching me self-smoke about 30 mins into the workout.

Here’s what I can remember:

Warmup lap with COP at the Church South entrance.

4 corners around the church, 4 laps with exercises at the doors. Squats, LBC, Merkins, and Peoples Choice. Start with 20 reps and drop by 5 each lap. Move out one parking lot lane each time to make the laps longer.

Hill Repeats. 5/10/15 reps with 3 trips each of diamonds, lunges, heels to heaven, a couple I forget. Closer with 3/6/9 burpees.

Mary back at launch point. I puked in my mouth but it went down ok.

Coat of Human Skin:

Who is the rotten scoundrel that invented the green peppermint? Someone should pay for this crime. Ranks right up there with fire ants, bow ties, and road cyclists in my book. While I’m at it, the new MacGyver guy doesn’t have a mullet. He is basically a walking green peppermint.

Anyway . . . it’s been a while since I have regularly attended any sort of workout. I spent most of April sick or lame in one way or another and I’m not the fitness machine that I once was. I think there is a Toby Keith song chorus somewhere here. The workout today for more of a “see how long you can hang on to this chain” event for me. Unfortunately the chain was attached to a dog collar and I ended up sharing the same fate as Dinky courtesy of the Family Truckster in National Lampoons.

Bulldog, Orange Whip, and Rhapsody talked incessantly during the entire workout. This is generally a sign of great fatigue and physical stress. It’s a good thing the talking Busch was on Q at Joust, or we would have definitely needed plugs. I’d like to see how a trip to the dentist goes for those guys. You know, when the dental hygienist wants to have a lovely conversation with you while you have a mouth full of mirror sticks, pointy things, and bloody foam. I bet she comes out looking like a zombie.

Had some stomach issues running up into the workout. I should have probably stopped eating two of those Bojanglers per day after Lent, but habits die hard. Good thing I had on my shartwool base layer.

The workout itself was pretty hard, at least for me. I think a few guys even sweated . I know that Orange Whip and Rhapsody run around like Tecmo Bowl Bo Jackson, but the rest of us have to work at these things.

I’m glad for the turnout. Given my recent absence, I expect that many have forgotten my name. I was expecting something like the Super Bowl Sunday evening worship service, but was pleasantly surprised to see some familiar faces. Given that watching me Q this thing was somewhat like YouTubing neti pot videos, I hope that they come back.

Out in the countryPast the city limits signWell there’s a honky tonkNear the county lineThe joint starts jumpin’ every nightWhen the sun goes downThey got whiskey women music and smokeIt’s where all the cowboy folkGo to boot scootin’ boogie

8 (I think) men braved the artic breeze and rolled out to the country for a little boot scootin.

Thang:

This little squirrel was made up on the fly, and I have already forgotten much of it, so this is more of a general overview. The entire workout was a large rolling COP to keep pax together.

COP

Mosey to Shiloh Elementary on other side of the world – took some COP stops

P1 runs loop around buses. P2 does 10 merkins, 10 lbcs, 10 squats, over and over until P1 returns. Flapjack X2. Q Tip: This works out better than assigning guys to do merkins for the whole time because people just end up laying there after they max out.

Pinball run back to covered tables in front.

Supine pullup blaster – 10, 9, 8, . . . .you get the drift

Mary

Skin:

Will keep this one short – Saturday is for the family, you know.

Good to Q again at the Outland. It’s a huge site with a million options. There are 4 schools on the property, with 2 elementary schools back to back on the same spot. The only thing more poorly planned than this workout is the Indian Trail housing infrastructure.

The Late Show is my boy. He gets my jokes and I like his beard. He eats nasty snacks though.

Madison is training for a 1/2 Ironman in June. Putting in some serious work. I just bought the watch.

EE had on the grandma windsuit again, which I think he changed into after a pre-run, and then changed into jeans and normal clothes immediately after the workout. He must do his own laundry.

I think Bullwinkle enjoyed all of the running between stops. He kept telling me how much he loved it in his special way.

Lots of ammo for the FNG naming. Nick gave some options for TV shows, Nickelodeon, etc . . . Caballero had some skater references that I don’t think were fully flushed out. Then his vocation as a soda machine vendor came out and the pax went with Dr. Thunder. This won out over Dr. Perky, Mr. Pibb, Shasta, Surge, and all of the other gross generic sodas people could come up with. I love how we immediately gravitate towards the nastiest and most embarrassing version of whatever someone is remotely linked to during the naming sessions.